The Northern Collegiate Hockey Association announced its end-of-season award winners on Wednesday and Lake Forest's Amy Budde was an All-NCHA selection while teammate Olyvia Opsahl was named to the NCHA All-Freshman Team.
Budde's 21 scores this season are five more than any other player in the league and she is 10th in the nation in goals per game. The senior forward also ranks second in the conference with 33 points and tied-for-10th in assists with a dozen. She has had at least one goal or assist in 17 of 27 games this season with nine-multi-point performances, including back-to-back three-point games in last weekend's NCHA Slaats Cup Playoff quarterfinal sweep of Trine University. Budde is second in program history with 70 career assists and her 61 goals and 131 points each rank third. She has played in a team record 111 games and the Foresters' 77 victories during her career are the most of any four-year span in school history. Budde was also an all-conference selection each of the last two years and a member of the NCHA All-Freshman Team in 2015-16.
Opsahl is tied for seventh among NCHA freshmen and 13th among league defenseman with 10 points this season. She also ranks tied-for-15th among all players in the conference in assists with 10. The newcomer is the Foresters' top defenseman in terms of plus/minus rating at +19 and has posted a negative mark in that category in just four games this season. Lake Forest has now had at least one player on the NCHA All-Freshman Team each of the last five years.
The Foresters are 16-6-5 on the season and one of three teams remaining in the NCHA Slaats Cup Playoffs. They will travel to league champion Adrian College to take on the College of St. Scholastica Friday night at 7:00 (ET) in the semifinals of the tournament. The winner will face Adrian in the final at 2:00 Sunday afternoon.